


Er Skeit

by Abraxas (Qlippoth)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, M/M, Scat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:28:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22413988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qlippoth/pseuds/Abraxas
Summary: AU/AR; set in a dystopian, "Metropolis" version of Avatar:TLA, where Sozin is a Liberator, Aang may or may not be dead, and benders are "techs"; Zuko and Sokka are outcasts who share a very spicy relationship - will their obsession with an aphrodisiac spice, Er Skeit, lead to doom?
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Kudos: 3





	Er Skeit

**Author's Note:**

> Like my Thundercats novella, 'One Million Years', this story/setting draws a lot of inspiration from the 1920's movie, 'Metropolis'. I also invoked relationship and fetish ideas from my Inuyasha fics. Yeah, I do that, across fandoms even within fandoms, I re-visit and re-imagine my favorite tropes. I planned to file off the serial numbers and present an 'original' version of this tale but the Avatar DNA shined right through anyhow. Eventually I'll reconcile these two versions and create a better over-all narrative (I always second-guess myself, what can I say?). 'Til then, enjoy.

Originally Published August 16, 2011

* * *

"Oh! That this too too solid flesh would melt  
thaw, and resolve itself into a dew."  
_\- Hamlet I.ii.129_

Azula jolted out of the warehouse, on to the sidewalk. Only the umbrage that engulfed the vicinity enshadowed the fall the dragon suffered away from the sight of the public. Even if that public was an alley - it would have been enough of a cause of shame that architecture witnessed everything. She stood determined not to stain the family, yet, will could not suppress the wretched function of biology the event inspired.

At length that upheaval passed after the trek to the vehicle.

She sunk into the cockpit idle at the alley. Watching. Waiting.

Steam erupted through gates, spread and spread like zealous angry smoke, until it melted into the void.

A vista displayed from end to end showed that the abysmal-sky framed the sky-view - a night within a night, a sky encompassed by a sky - as the Fire Realm above truncated the Water Realm below, 

The warehouse, still and quiet, did not reveal a trace of doom that unfolded within it.

Azula sighed, wiped her eyes with her hands.

The reality of what she witness was vivid now as it was vivid then. Reliving it - suddenly, suddenly - another interpretation of history came into focus. Indeed, everything that transpired after Iroh's disappearance and Sokka's reappearance took a whole other turn of clarity. It was that Zuko simply was not part of that or any other world.

At the edge of the vicinity - where small, dead Hamma Sector met large, alive areas - a shaft emerged out of a chaos of structure. That facade emitted a rhythmic flash of green. That eerie, dusty color washed the environment like water washed earth. Airships, floating between Water and Fire Realms, blending into night's palette of activity, illuminated the transit of the city.

That night the crowd was devoid of feature - a mass without a face - accentuating its nature as disposable.

If it were just a trip into an unzoned area of city then the sight of the crowd would have inspired a swell of dread. Distance, though, proved to be a comfort against danger. Azula gave it to Zuko. Despite how life disintegrated into death he maintained a separation - a shred of nobility that would not be defied.

Zuko.

Zuko.

Azula needed to find a way to scrub the mess Zuko was about to make of everything. Something. Fast. Quick. Dirty. Something ... yes ... ere the family was dragged into obscurity.

She activated the cellular. She wanted the nurse. About to contact that hospital, she thought, she stopped - could it be that she admitted a taste of panic? She vowed not to act with haste.

That seal remained at the loft at the warehouse, 'tending' her brother, 'covering' his ass - there could be no doubt of it.

It would be dangerous to mix nurse and seal given the situation and the relation between them. If word of that night leaked then it would be the end of the family; and too too much was sacrificed already to allow such a catastrophe. The fewer who knew of the event and were privy to its cover the better off everybody would be.

Between sister and brother - nurse and seal - with respect to manipulation, the girl was softer while the boy was harder. One accepted the Revolution One rejected the Revolution. The methods she needed to employ against them were similarly diametric. Better to confront them one to one than two to one.

Such were the intrigues of tomorrow and she was yet to get through the rigor of today.

Azula opted to wait until the inbetweener left.

The dragon imagined Sokka's effort to hide evidence would be thorough - given the family's ability at water-tech. Little would be left of the event except what she recalled of it. Maybe. Maybe. Unless a tangible remnant could be found as he did not appear to be too bright.

The truth did not matter. The evidence did not matter. Either way she was not going to search through fox-joints to arrest and prosecute the seal.

Quickly, she recalled Mai and Ty Lee, the Kiyoshi would do.

She sunk into the cockpit as the lights of the instruments at its panel reflected onto her face.

The strobe lured the woman into a trance, soothing and calming.

By Great Sozin's Comet - it was not how that night was supposed to end.

The document sealed by the glory of the color of the family was official. Azula itched to lay it onto Zuko. To gaze. No. To celebrate. As she would be forever and ever an only child to the eye of the Oligarchy....

She was not prepared....

Azula always thought she understood Zuko. But catching him debased atop hands and knees? And catching him, head between those thighs, face up, up through that cleft of flesh, eyes shut, mouth open? Only to be overwhelmed with an eruption like ejaculation followed by panic. She kept at it again and again without fail, reliving (resensing) that encounter. That totality which defied the mind's ability to cope.

"Idiot!" she eked.

* * *

It rained that afternoon at the edge of the Hamma Sector.

What scattered fragments of sky that could be viewed through the filter of upper Fire Realm level suggested a frothy, angry azure that burst with rigors of storm. Clouds appeared, tensing and flexing, clenched together to issue thunder and lightning, spread apart to release their treasure of water. The avenue of that vicinity of that area, from vista to vista of the Water Ream, glistened at the wake of the silver arctic dew. Vehicles, speeding to and fro, racing across the canyons of the city, added their melody to the rhythm of the downpour.

In the midst of the storm, Sokka and Zuko explored that outskirt of their territory, a former complex. Swaths of facades. Patches of debris. Traces, there and there, some whole, some shattered, of what used to be industry.

They crossed a park that seemed to grow out of a cesspool. They approached a corner that teemed with people. As they paused to await the switch from 'stop' to 'go', they resheathed - Sokka his club, Zuko his broadsword.

The dragon turned its eyes onto that universe aloft and gazed like a child at a toy behind glass. The vast, airy Fire Realm - untold miles and miles ayonder - looked stirred, awoken ready and able to strike. It was stoked by a video-screen dragged by an airship that displayed the monk to the frenzy of the crowd. Details of that event were obliterated by distance yet the image was enormous (and not by accident) that the face of the monk - twelve if that - stared blankly (lifelessly) at the world itself. He studied the image - Aang looked straight into the camera, onto the viewer - a warning flashed too pixilated and deformed to be read.

The affair was a reminder that today was Avatar Day.

"What is it?" the seal asked out of the azure.

"How did I forget about Avatar Day?" dragon replied aloud to seal - who smirked at the thought of that queer fire holiday. "Could I have been away that long that I forget about Avatar Day?"

"Yeah ... you dragons do an Avatar Day every other month."

Zuko patted Sokka at the shoulder.

"Something like that more or less."

The signal switched; water and fire child, hand in hand, surrounded by the crowd that did not appear to judge the zippering of such dark and light skin, walked across the avenue - of its twelve via only four were filled.

In spite of the wolf's humor, realizing what today was about - that day of day - the griffin's face filled with doom and that stress urged a familiar burn at the pit of the stomach.

It was more about the Day than the Avatar. Worse - that "Avatar Day" was used by dragons as a pretext to poke about other elemental realms, even unzoned and fox-joint sectors. To seek their enemy. To demonstrate their preparedness. Avatar Day was at the end Fire Day and a celebration of the Revolution.

A mix of trauma ... the ritual and the custom and his experience with that ... it was part of the world he escaped and did not wish to encounter again.

"Hey, Zuzie ... Zuzie ... it will be OK, right?"

Zuko stopped and gazed at Sokka - at the wake of a breath taken by the seal's raw and pure masculine glory the dragon felt as if indeed nothing beyond them existed.

The storm raged ... water whirled at pools that drained at the edges of the sidewalks that funneled through deeper and darker realms.

Then a sound like that of a crash erupted out of the maze of the architecture. Instinctively, the crowd sought to locate the sound. Everybody was shocked at it - that sector was such a tomb.... It could not be caused by anything about them. Not by the traffic that was more through than local. Not by the structures that stood like the skeletons of fingers emerging through rubble.

Then a hint about it reflected off of a colossal tower of steel. A pillar - one of millions and millions that held together the City of Metropolis. Across that pillar was a shadow that shook as it wobbled left and right. It appeared to retreat lower and lower. Somebody pointed at that display. Another shriek. A wail called out of the crowd.

Zuko and Sokka held onto each other as panic swept.

And then the sound of the crash returned. It hinted at the shatter of glass and buckle of metal. As it screeched its last fatal gasp the cause was revealed. It came out of above, above the Fire Realm.

A cloud thinned just at the correct time and space to unveil a dome aglow with fire.

Zuko understood that it was the demolition of the Gyatso. An Air Realm temple. A structure that yoked the Azulon Sector.

Sokka sighed as it was reduced to nil after a decade of careful inch by inch deconstruction.

As they stared its facade was consumed by fire. Its structure swayed, buckled. The temple collapsed, top to bottom, outside to inside until only a fog of debris pulverized to smoke remained.

Airships flew into that ash and its scrub worked at that relic of a past of tyranny - of monks atop dragons.

Soon everything would be swept away....

Only the support of the temple would be remnant - it could not be removed without jeopardizing the integrity of the city. Otherwise the Fire Realm would have freed itself already of that history. A feat like that was attempted recklessly (dangerously) the year of the Revolution. A troop of earth-techs, drunk off their mastery of their element, collapsed the Yangchen Sector with the employ a new and different metal-tech. The damage that ensued destroyed fire and water sectors at the south polar region and sparked evacuations of refugees. It led to a rift between elements that were not fully healed - although to be certain - Sokka told Zuko that nowadays it was promoted by Fire Realm propaganda aimed to disrupt the Operators.

The Gyatso, whose fall they witnessed, always stood as a spot against Zuko's family's reputation. The House of Azulon, among the few great, great grand children of Sozin the Liberator, proved to be the last to eradicate a hated Air Realm temple. That and the curious way his father inherited _his father_ tended to mark the status of the family among those whose business it was to maintain Oligarchy.

"Zuko," said Sokka; he gestured with his face at a troop of children, clad red head to foot, at the other side of the avenue.

A look followed and the dragon took the seal by the sleeve. Except through the inertia of a body already at motion the wolf did not resist the griffin as they snuck into the Kodiak - a tiny ethnic grocer. Together they huddled, amid shadow and darkness, while the children of fire marched by.

Zuko grasped Sokka. An adult appeared. Zuko slunk further and further into oblivion. Sokka grasped the handle of the club. At length the danger vanished without incident.

"Zhao," the frail, ashen dragon explained. The tattooed, mohawked seal relaxed. "Zhao, my father's right-hand, if there could be anybody that unbearable.... Azula dropped that I lived at the Hamma Sector. That's why he came - he .... he delights dragging me through the dirt. He always made my Avatar Day heck, too, he and my sister."

"Are you two foxes hiding from the law?" interrupted the proprietor of the establishment.

"Foxes?" Zuko asked, a knot at the brow. "Foxes?"

"No," Sokka exclaimed, shocked at the wild-eyed, old man, "we're just innocents - victims, really - of that sweet sweet smell of meat coming out of your store."

"Hmmm," that elder stroked a patch of gray at the tip of the chin. Catching by the noble azure light of the insignia a glimpse of Zuko's face and its scar. Seeing it, fully, completely. "Inbetweeners," he slurred and shuffled away.

Sokka sighed: "Let's just look for the spice," he said, yanking at his friend's sleeve, "we're already at the store and might as well do something useful."

The dragon's eye seethed as if it spit fire at the visage of that man retreating to the front of the store.

"Wretched ... inbetweener ... I am a dragon, you are a seal ... how do you...."

"Hey," the seal said, clasping his companion at the butt of the chin, twisting the face until they met eye to eye. "Zuzie," he added with a soothing, calming voice. He stroked the hair, a feral, ebony mane, revealing that area of the scar where it encompassed the ear. "They're just - old, ancient - people," he continued, massaging the boundary between pale and scarlet skin. "It's what we are. Zuzie. It's what we are. We are to inbetweeners."

Zuko took Sokka at the wrist. He gazed askew as their fingers met, as their textures entwined - one tawny, one pallid. He raised wrist to mouth and left a mark of dew atop it like the seal of a document. With that magic of skin kissing skin the dragon slept again....

They shopped about the aisles, gathering items to stock their pantry.

The store was kept dim except at the front windows and at the back freezers. Daylight was tempered by the whim of the storm and varied from shade to shade with the passage of its vapors. There was enough illumination though to read the merchandise.

It was there, there at a shelf where it did not belong, surrounded by Water Realm specialties - an item of mysterious, earthy origin.

Sokka munched fireflakes while Zuko examined that bottle of spice.

A vial of yellow tinted glass. Its label white and black. The spice itself was a dusty, clumpy red.

"Er Skeit."

It claimed to be imported out of an unnamed, remote area of the Earth Realm. A few insisted it came out of Level-Nil or out of Ba Sing Se. Even the badgers they knew did not understand where it originated.

Sokka dug into that bag to fetch the extra crunchy, crispy fireflakes.

"Just where did you find it?"

Sokka smiled and uttered: "Accident."

Zuko raised the brow - if it was not meat, it was not something the wolf dabbled with.

"Actually, it fell out of Bumi's cabinet, don't ask, don't tell." He took the yellow tinted vial with fire dust fingers and shook it - the content rattled. "You know ... it's just as painful getting out as getting in ... and it's not doing you any bit of good, griffin...."

"That's why I love you beyond reason," Zuko said as they blushed, "beyond understanding." Their faces, lips met and touched - just touched - a fraction of a breath. "Think of a potato."

"A potato?" Sokka frowned, as they separated. "A side of beef maybe...."

"Argh," Zuko's hands slipped and squeezed Sokka's waist. "Just think of a potato. Unsalted ... it's rough. But a little sprinkle of spice here and here and all of its flavors come alive."

Again their faces and their lips met and brushed not kissed although there was a bit of wetness that exchanged between friends.

"All of its man flavors ... its seal flavors ... come alive," the dragon uttered through whisper.

"Can there be such flavors?" He gave a wolfish smile as he panted and gazed, ravenously, at that griffin. "Buddy, you got a stranger relationship with food than me!"

The seal smiled as he finally leaned and kissed, sharing the taste of the fireflakes with his companion - who licked and suckled fire dusty lips.

"Through enshadowed valley, cold, warm by the offering of my friend, I kiss, tasting what only I know of," Zuko licked the dust clean off of Sokka's face, "tasting ... tasting ... it feels as if we are a single being end to start."

Sokka brought his arms up and onto Zuko's shoulders. "After are you gonna wash me, clean me like that, Li Po?" he teased.

"I won't leave a spot," he promised.

* * *

Azula raged into the hospital at the Pakku Sector despite the gate and the threat of arrest. The dragon simply did not care enough to do an introduction that day. A too too delicate family project awaited that could not be stopped to ape the custom of the folk. She sparked to keep the guard away. She kicked others this way, that way.... She left it to her foxy train of Kiyoshi to mend any breach of protocol.

At last, unmolested by authority, she barged into a tiny, yellow chamber, interrupting its fragment of intimate, delicate tenderness between a griffin and a seal she could not bother about.

Sokka, tall and broad, arose out of a kiss.

Zuko, frail and ashen, settled on to that mattress.

"It's a little too early yet to celebrate at becoming an only child, Azula," Zuko quipped, weakly, unphased at what she could have caught a sight of.

The griffin's only good eye blinked at the wolf who out of caution retreated into a corner of the chamber.

"Ridiculous!" Azula approached the bed opposite to where the tattooed, mohawked Sokka had been seated. "Idiot! Did you think you would be able to hide it? _Hide it!_ A matter of life and death. You cannot hide it as if you were Iroh...."

"Touching to think that you _worry_ about me, Zul, thank you.... But my health is my health. And Sokka's sister Katara is my doctor."

"Is that how you hate your own kind?" The dragon shook then straightened with a glare of disgust. "I want to forget you, Zuko," Azula confessed what everyone knew to be true already. "What I want is immaterial. You are a child of my father yet insist you want to lead the life of an inbetweener. You, therefore, cross that limit of liability. You taint the family, Zuzie, your search for destiny jeopardizes the family. All of this. All of this," she pointed wildly, at the chamber and its contents.

At Sokka.

Azula studied that product of Water Realm breed. Like each and every savage of that litter, he sported that head's cut of hair, he broadcasted that face's design - so enigmatic only Great Sozin's Comet knew what any of it meant. And yet there it was splayed in front of her face, her eyes, a sight to scare a ghost, a fine figure of seal no doubt in and out of bed. Gods! That her own brother, her own flesh and blood brother, would be cohabitating with an initiate of Operators?

"Zuzie ... just return with us. All of this, this - whatever it is - will be forgotten. You would be allowed to bring a seal - like - the way nobody complains about my badger friends. Who would know? Who would know? And you would be with family."

"That _warrior_ is Sokka," Zuko seethed, his words urging a flash of red across Sokka's face as he, meekly and humbly, avoided contact by staring out of the window. "And I'd rather be among snakes. Exchange exile with prison? What was that about keeping friends and enemies?"

The window was ajar and admitted a scent of a bright summer day - as bright and summer as day could be that deep into the Water Realm.

"Something stupid, no doubt, that Iroh told you about," the dragon sneered.

Zuko shifted; the blanket fell and revealed a weaker, thinner body than the face permitted. The ribs were like ridges. The organs were like outlines. It was then and there that Azula realized how sunken were the features of the face. The mane, too, unkempt as it was, attained a strange brittle quality all of a sudden.

Sokka's eye welled as that image of Zuko reflected against the window....

"He told me about destiny, about what mattered. And do you know what I realized, Zul? You rule air! You conquered air and you rule air. Your ambition is air. Gods - you couldn't rule this world anymore than reach into last week. Metropolis didn't overthrow the monks to install the dragons.... And as with monks so with dragons - that power atop Metropolis is as make-believe as what the Avatar pedaled. I tell you the day the Fire Realm falls there will be a shout of freedom like the world never heard."

Azula hovered atop of Zuko and, after a minute to study the patient, she pressed her lip to his lip.

"So that is what death tastes - like a mouth full of shit - Zuko, Zuko," she stood above and gazed below at the griffin. "I am prepared to say that was only the medication."

Then she stormed out of the chamber, dragging her white and black painted Suki along like a whirlwind.

* * *

It was any other afternoon at the Kuruk Rail-Road Station.

Zuko awaited a ride when everything was stopped by a flash of yellow - that synchronous streak of yellow that disturbed and captivated like a flute emerging through that cacophony. The video-screen altered its program to demonstrate with the basic visual idiom that the station was to be evacuated. Wails. Screams. Chaos erupted as feet stomped, overran passages - and drowned the call of the alarm that followed.

He stared at that yellow, a color reflecting off of eye, as it flickered in and out of existence, the trance softened the pandemonium into a monotony devoid of texture.

It could have been that training endured at childhood (deep, deep into Fire Realm preparedness). It could have been indifference ... a tendency toward passive, destructive nihilism. As it was or not was, his wits did not cease. While others scrambled to reach exits, he walked at a pace that would be called determined and cool. Eventually their war to be free of the station ended with victory and he found himself at the center of the platform.

Alone, he descended a staircase while a zephyr of hot, acrid air abused his mane.

At the base of the station he came out of that trance. He gazed about at the whole of the crowd, studying the way it reacted, reflexively, automatically, like animals trained by the whims of the video-screens.

"Son ... you need to go." It was a low, bass voice and it came out of a patroller - a Water Realm officer - clad yellow. He reached and grasped Zuko at the shoulder. "Son ... you need to go."

Zuko replied without a word by peeling a flap of jacket and exposing its color. Faded to be sure yet unmistakable. The complete ID card was at his pocket - it was revoked, thankfully, the patrollers seldom dug that deep.

"I am sorry to be hard, son, I mean it, you need to go," the law continued.

The dragon studied the tall, broad seal - raven strands of shoulder hair, patch of beard at the chin, wet, glossy eyes azure ... a familiarity that he welcomed with a sigh.

Meanwhile they caught a rhythmic sweep of light coming out of the tunnel as a worker poked about its track.

"What could have happened?" he asked.

"Operators," the patroller explained without inflection, "somebody called a bomb."

Only they remained - seal and dragon - the platform was like a grave at the wake of its evacuation.

Zuko shut his eye and shuddered - the patroller held the doorway and he sped out of the station.

Of course it was Operators. Or it was the While Lotus. Or it was who or what the shape of the enemy was today.

Free of that station, the crowd at the avenue offered a glimpse of Metropolitanism, a cosmos compacted into the shape and form of the world.

All of it could be found there, reflected among the faces of the wanderers and the striations revealed by their behavior, awaited the properly trained eye to deconstruct.

The dragons were paralyzed. Their fear was genuine. They were not rulers or offsprings of warlords. They were commoners whose job it was to maintain other elemental realms. The Oligarchy's propaganda about the Avatar was fed to them. The Avatar and the Operators and the WhiteLotus - a whole entire mythology was crafted about groups whose existence beyond the year of the Revolution was dubious. The tales always emphasized their dissatisfaction, their corruption of fire, water, and earth tech, their fervor to create a new and different world reshaped as it were into their own ideal of perfected. A CounterRevolution that required the fall of the Fire Realm. Perhaps more in fiction than in fact, the dogma reflected the paranoia of its author....

The seals appeared to be more annoyed than concerned that terrorists picked their realm to do their mischief. It was hard to gauge what they believed. Although they were loyal to the order established by Sozin the Liberator. The Water Realm as a whole gained everything it wanted - to compare, little changed about the Fire and Earth Realms after the monks were destroyed. Yet they formed the bulk of the inbetweeners and the foxes out of which the WhiteLotus and the Operators sought allies. Indeed, that contradiction proved to be a problem the Oligarchy faced again and again. The Revolution - or the Year of the Comet - or the Comet - the event's name shifted from decade to decade as tastes fluctuated and it was expedient to emphasize alternate facets of history in order to maintain the hegemony among the elements. For a while 'the Comet' was out of favor. At that age the Oligarchy feared that comet connoted fire and could have enraged seals enough to convert against dragons. The label returned, however, when astronomy discovered that a comet was water not ice.

Concession. Compromise. Such was the business of the Fire Realm.

At the walls of the avenues loitered the representatives of the Earth Realm - badgers. Just a few - a sprinkle of dirt scattered by the wind - they did not like to ascend the heights of the Water or Fire Realms. Even that Hamma Sector, with its vast, unzoned and fox-joint areas, could have been an infinity away from their element. Of everybody they were so attached to their element that they feared leaving it and its comfort. Like a troglodyte they were pale without tint except where they spread about their faces various shades of earth. They simply did not worry about the world beyond their dirt and demonstrated that apathy with their flaunted impenetrable and arcane mystery. The truth was that politics of post air society meant nil as they continued their own way of life that the enlightenment of the Revolution did not yet penetrate.

Last - mixed about the crowd - were the inbetweeners and the foxes. They used to be a part of a realm until disavowed by family if not by society. They kept among themselves, either at unzoned or fox-joint territory, where authority did not look. Former techs or commoners without abilities, no striation was enforced, no distinction was marked. Everybody was welcome into exile as they were without judgment.

Iroh always praised them and their independence and thought they were a key to a future free of the chasms that separated people into realms and techs and even among male and female. Zuko, too, thought about melting out of sight and embracing, fully, completely, that alternate universe - as the dragon of the west did - he just could not forget what he grew up with ... it was the devil he knew all too well....

Iroh told Zuko to find his own destiny first and let that lead where to go.

A part of that resistance to change no doubt could have been a twisted form of resentment.

Azula! ... that prodigy ... that apple of the Oligarchy ... delighting to torment Zuko.

Early he knew it was a competition he could not match. She had their father. He had their mother - a woman who was sinking further and further into insanity. As years went by hiding the condition she suffered overwhelmed mastering the fire-tech. He withdrew effectively to contemplate what he could be learned without rivalry: the work of other elements and their tech - especially the air-tech - which rubbed their father and delighted their mother. It proved to be too rewarding an outlet of rebellion.

Zuko always grasped the difference between wrong and right but did not always act accordingly. A life of advantage, either real or imagined, that was understood and difficult to reject. Yet ... sooner or later ... the color of the family would be faded away and the patrollers would be asking too many questions about expired ID cards. It would be the end of the illusion.

The rain stirred as Zuko traced a path to the warehouse. He could have chosen another train at another station about the route. And truth was that he would have at any other day. But especially with the onset of storm he felt at peace walking through the wide empty avenues of the Hamma Sector.

He raised his collar and tread onward.

Thoughts about life past and future swept through his mind like those whirlpools he walked by draining runoff into deeper and darker areas of Metropolis.

It had been five years since they - Zuko and Iroh - left their home. Three years since Iroh vanished. One year since Zuko held a job.

He was yet to find a life.

Zuko wanted to work at a school that could have employed his talent - his nerve, however, failed again and again. Always came the realization of the consequence. A truly settled and permanent job at a sector beyond the Fire Realm would be a divorce.... A break he did not know if he were able to endure. There was self-loathing and self-doubting remnant of childhood especially when it came to his ability with fire-tech that continued its haunt. A thousand excuses as to why he would not be accepted as a freelancer flashed and with that the endeavor ceased.

At that juncture, caught by waves and waves of thought, it was by chance he encountered a wanderer at the avenue.

They were face to face where they bumped, thankfully, they did not fall.

Zuko realized the youth was a Water Realm denizen. About his age - dark to his light. Shaved to his unkempt. Across the eyes: seal was tattooed, dragon was scarred. Armed: the former with a club, the latter with a broadsword.

A vehicle passed and lent its illumination.

Stubble, like dew, surrounded the bud where the scalp grew a mohawk. The clothes were a baggy mix of yellow with shades of orange and green..... But the face - showed a strong, determined fearsome warrior. And the eyes - revealed a playful, gentle azure gaze.

Zuko knew such eyes. And lips. And hands. Instinctively, he recalled what it felt to be rapt by such a body....

"Sorry," said Zuko.

"You make a habit of bumping into strangers in the middle of the night?"

"Not my style," Zuko replied - he lowered his collar - "just tough to navigate in the middle of the storm."

Now, with the dragon faced, it was the warrior's turn to wonder about the youth - there was something very, very familiar about that face ... if only it were not scarred, he could have put a name to it.

"That's quite a burn," he quipped - and though he did not show it regretted it.

"Yeah, mom gave it to me."

"A birthmark?"

"No ... she ... went crazy...."

"That's rough buddy."

Zuko eked a smile then just a moment glimpsed into the vista above as the water plumbed below.

"Yeah," seal added, "you're a long long way from home, aren't you, dragon?"

"No ... I live at a warehouse at the back of the park."

The youth raised an eyebrow - Zuko smiled again at that wild exaggerated gesture - _a dragon at the Hamma Sector?_ the seal thought, _and what about the mother at the madhouse?_

"You waiting or looking for somebody?" Zuko asked.

The wolf smiled. "Depends ... you trying to pick me up?"

The griffin chuckled. "Maybe ... you remind me of somebody ... a seal I knew as a kid. Sokkie."

The warrior's eyes widened.

"Zuzie?"

They crossed the park, scurrying from structure to structure through breaks of storm. Already they felt a change about the environment. Of the architecture, the facades that could be viewed were bleak, abysmal, revealing as it were to the two a suggestion that as they crawled they were more and more alienated from civilization. Of the vista, the quality was impersonal, too, which proved to be immeasurable although apparent when they paused to wait at awnings. It was just the reality of the Hamma Sector - named after a martyr against Air Realm tyranny; it used to be a center of industry, employing techs from Fire, Water, and Earth Realms, until the economy shifted....

"So ... is your sister still a bitch?"

"Azula - worse, if possible - is your sister still a pain at the ass?"

"Eh, it's so, so now that she settled a bit," Sokka said, "she works at Pakku's hospital."

"Yeah? Katara used to hate Pakku ... after what you told me," Zuko said - the dragon patted the seal at the head, skin splashing skin. "Funny, isn't it? I overheard my mother and father talk about marrying me to Katara and you to Azula ... until what happened with your father."

Sokka laughed and tapped Zuko's chin with his thumb.

The storm was fierce and already much of the Hamma Sector was pitch. The flicker of lamp could not penetrate its climate. The light of the Fire Realm above below was impotent.

After a while of walking and talking they were silent until the wolf added: "Yeah, Katara, she took that hard, real real hard. When dad went against Pakku, it was after Gran Gran died, too, and she felt like the only woman of the family, you know. She'd always been more of a mother than a sister."

"Your family is a lot better than my family," the griffin confessed.

"Duh...."

Zuko grasped Sokka's arm, clinging until slipping lower and lower - then, nervously, anxiously, their hands found each other.

As storm raged thunder and lightning, griffin squeezed wolf, then, Zuko reached and palmed at Sokka's patch of mohawk. With two hands, two sets of fingers, the dragon traced the edges of the tattoos of the seal. He understood its symbology - an ancient water ceremony that marked passage into manhood. He understood, too, it could be an insult to culture to be that familiar. Yet - that intimacy was not objected, rather, that contact was reciprocated as Sokka touched Zuko's scar.

Their hearts skipped a beat at that excitement of touch.

The language of their body invited exploration and their fingers complied, ravenously, devouring each other's sacrifices....

"God, you're such a warrior!" Zuko bit his tongue as Sokka took him, tightly but gently, at the waist drew and they drew into each other as their bodies allowed, "I do not know a seal like you among dragons...."

They continued the drawing together of their bodies until their lips touched. Not kissed. Not brushed. Touched. Then Smothered. Then teeth emerged onto teeth.

"Do you need a seal like me my little white dragon, a hard, big seal," Sokka spoke onto Zuko's mouth - the griffin awoke such lust into the wolf.

"Yes."

Zuko inhaled Sokka's lower wet lip.

It used to be that they were tight as boys.

Zuko recalled it was the only part of youth he enjoyed. Especially that night when they shared a bed, as they were oft to do, their sheets gathered onto their knees. It was a new and different iteration of their nighttime as they were laying arm to arm, thighs to thighs, as they displayed their family colors.

Sokka and Zuko embraced, their arms at their backs, water splashing their faces.

"What's a big name guy like you living at a fox-joint like this?" Sokka asked as their fire was quenched a bit - prematurely - with the passing of a vehicle.

"A big name guy?" Zuko chuckled. "The family's not as important as it wants to be. Anyway ... they don't want me."

"So," the seal whispered - knowing that the family was not as humble as the dragon made it to be ... descendant of Sozin the Liberator and everything - "you an inbetweener?"

"No." He stopped to wipe his face. "No, I just left the realm with my uncle ... actually ... I don't much care about that shit."

He gave a half-smirk, half-frown as he, too, wiped his face. "Yeah, I guess, a big name guy like you could be like that - it must be the latest jerk-tech craze to be like us...."

"Hey, wait a minute, Sokka."

A vehicle passed, slowed, passed washing them again with the wake of its light.

Amid the silence that followed, Zuko reached Sokka, hand and hand. Cold, yet they did not offer resistance. He emitted a warmth through his fingers that invited - and received - a reply squeeze.

Sokka looked down and away and smiled.

"Stay with me," Zuko said.

The vehicle returned.

Sokka broke free of Zuko.

"Maybe, Zuzie, I got to go though."

Zuko, alone, rain against face, watched Sokka crawl into the vehicle. Without a wave it sped away. Only for a blink of the eye, as it passed by, he caught a glimpse of its cockpit and its pilots - badgers - one an extremely aged man, one a very young girl.

* * *

"You are the water-tech who treated my brother?" asked Azula as she jumped in front of the woman.

Katara blinked as that clipboard she clutched onto sagged a little.

The uniform revealed that stranger to be an upper ranked dragon. The gaze, a mixture of determined and crazed, added to the shock of it. It was weird to find anybody of rank at that lower Water Realm outpost. Let alone, if that statement were correct, that _two_ would have found themselves at Pakku's Hospital.

"Sorry ... I ... we ... it's just that we don't get a lot of Fire Realm patients...."

Certainly, she would have remembered if she treated somebody of the Fire Realm oligarchy. Especially, as those family colors indicated, a somebody of magnitude.

" _That_ is why you ought to remember," Azula said - and raised her hand to her eye and cheek. "You do not notice? Come. Come. You do not see the resemblance? _Oh, Uncle, I need to find my destiny_ ," she mocked a low, bass voice.

"Zuko?" The water-tech leaned and whispered: "I thought Zuko was badger?"

The woman's jaw dropped - she could not believe that her very own flesh and blood brother, exiled brother, offspring of Ozai, and great, great, great grandson of Sozin the Liberator went about pretending to be a badger.

"Sorry, I didn't know, they didn't display ... the color...."

"I am shocked, yet, I am not shocked ... he could be trying to blend with that seal."

"You mean, Sokka, my brother?"

"Yes - your brother must be an inbetweener?"

Katara shook and looked down, away.

"Sokka brought Zuko to Pakku's about a year ago, though, that condition was older, older ... they didn't seek aid until it grew too difficult to ignore. I thought Zuko was a fox ... heck ... I suspected Zuko was an Operator. Exiles out of the Earth Realm - they tend to be the folk that Sokka runs with."

"It must be that scar," Azula added with a smirk. "Mother did not always know reality from fantasy."

As the shift switched they walked and talked about the corridor.

"You implied the condition is old," Azula asked, "how old do you think it is? How long do you think he suffered?"

"Hard to be certain," replied Katara. "A chronic disease - it cycles although it grows worse and worse every time it strikes. It's gastrointestinal. You know: diarrhea, vomiting, nausea. Flu. Lately, and oddly, there's septic blood _and lung_ infection. We uncovered a trace of e-coli that suggested it could be related to food-poison. That might be why it was ignored the way it was. Yet it doesn't explain everything about the condition."

"You mean a lot of it could be that he eats something - something contaminated?"

"We thought about that except that Sokka and Zuko live together and they don't both get sick. Anyway, they don't appear to be eating anything unusual. Oh," the water-tech stopped to recall, "yeah ... actually ... we found the remnant of an ethnic badger ingredient."

"Ingredient?"

"Spice."

The woman smirked - Zuko did not crave heat....

"Could be a bad diet."

"Could be ... but ... there is another way it could be happening ... but ... it's something we do not see a lot of."

They continued to walk and talk through the interior and exterior of the hospital, passing by at odd intervals those white, black painted Kiyoshi.

"Just how did these _dysfunctional_ brothers of ours get together?" asked Azula.

Katara replied: "Father used to work at the Azulon Sector as a carpenter. Sokka loved to join too. That must be it. They met as kids. Afterward, though, I donno ... he chose to follow father into exile and we don't talk too much about stuff anymore."

"Sokka adored his father and joined that reckless path into oblivion. You obeyed your grandfather and kept a tight family dynamic. Order over Chaos. You lead a life and want to keep it _normal_."

Katara clutched at the clipboard - someway, somehow conferring with that dragon was like a spider leading a fly.

"Relax," Azula smiled and almost froze the blood of a woman whose ancestors lurked at the Antarctic. "I, too, prefer order over chaos. Anyway, you know we could not have cast aside that turtle without our seal and badger allies, so, you understand why my brother's life is an embarrassment?"

The woman shut her eyes and sighed.

"What's your angle...."

"Just keep quiet about my brother and your brother and whatever they could be up to ... now," the dragon leaned into the water-tech and whispered, "tell me about that spice...."

* * *

Zuko stumbled into an object - and it wrecked that rudderless, aimless existence he led after Iroh.... The object was Sokka. A friend from a younger, freer age that chance reunited at the midst of the storm. Looking at that night, as he was fond to do again and again, he was struck by the reality he could not remember any other encounter where he smiled. It was a change of state to interact without worry everything would be examined ... analyzed. He was at ease, comfortable in side of his skin.

What could be said except Zuko did not need to pretend with Sokka.

Lured by the taste of the seal, raw and fresh, the dragon embarked onto a voyage....

Instead of staying at that loft and its sector, he stepped out of safety, into danger. He trekked through areas visited by inbetweeners and foxes. He rejected the red of the family - and dressed to be inconspicuous among the exile with shades of yellow. Mostly, due to what Iroh taught by example, he knew to restrain the mouth and to free the ear - he studied the way of the underside and attempted to adopt their myriad of culture. Until that proved to be too difficult to replicate outright.... At the end he settled onto a raspy, low whisper and a meek aspect that ambiguated his origin.

Zuko was surprised at how freely, how effortlessly he took to vagrancy.

Although to be certain, his virgin, ashy skin did not blend with a tawny, swarthy tattooed texture that majority seal displayed proudly. Especially among foxes who went about their business at joints he traversed. Thankfully, however, there were enough badgers to diffuse the vibe of dragon his complexion would have induced. The scar, too, proved to be quite an ice-breaker. After a while he quit trying to hide it. He stopped correcting when mistaken as another breed of wanderer.

As he traversed that universe he formed a regular pattern of life. He sheltered at alleys instead of fox-joints. He slept by day, journeyed by night. He followed crowds as they migrated from event to event. And throughout he kept an eye on vehicles as they passed by. Searching. Hoping. Praying.

Zuko found himself at an Arctic sector of the Water Realm that he could not identify. Someway. Somehow. He reached what had to be the end of the world only to slink away into a field that could have been tundra. A barrel jammed into gravel provided a fire. He eased onto the rubble and turned to see the world as it unfurled from left to right. At the left was a video-screen displaying that monkish, ageless Aang - that so-called Avatar - leader of the WhiteLotus, embodiment of inspiration of the Operators. At the right was a crowd out of which erupted a laugh.

A fox with a too too familiar mohawk flung a rock at that image.

It hit the wall instead of the glass.

An earth-tech laughed.

Zuko sighed and returned to the business of safety.

It was not Sokka. The figure that tried to shatter that glass was a fox as revealed by a mark. A true water tribe warrior would not sport it. Sokka followed Hakoda into that exiled realm of world yet the father would not be a fox and the son would not be a disappointment. Theirs was a tight, strong family....

The dragon's mind wandered as it tended to do, as it recalled his uncle. What unknown, abysmal depth of earth was Iroh's refuge? Iroh said the world was not (fully) encompassed by Metropolis. He thought the Earth Realm denizen knew of those areas unspoilt by man ... and yearned to find that paradise.

Zuko judged Iroh a fool ... until he realized at that juncture ... he was guilty, too, of chasing a fantasy.

Sokka could be anywhere at a city that spanned what man knew of creation. Its realms and levels and sectors innumerable. Its worlds and worlds within worlds. Places nobody dared to name and where order ceased to be. The greatest inbetweener could not know everything.

Was it possible to find his friend in spite of the odds? Did he need to wait another decade? Another dark and stormy night?

He slapped his hands onto his knees and smirked while gazing at the rubble. Suddenly, the clamor erupting out of the foxes was hard to ignore. He did not like the look of it and opted to exit.

He stood at the ready about to lift-collar when he heard a burst of laugh - it was the gang at the video-screen. That image it displayed was obliterated through the shuffling and filling of the crowd. What fragments of details could be seen suggested it was to do with the Comet. A fox urinated at the glass - sparks and a flailing, elongating shout followed.

Stepping onto a sidewalk he chanced to spot that old, old badger - gods, the frame was unmistakable.

Zuko kept behind the cover of the vehicle nearby and watched that figure step into a video-house.

It was the Omashu - a theater equally decayed and ancient as that figure. An establishment that no doubt dated the area when it used to be reputable. It was dilapidated, its light half on, half off. It was only showing 'Love Among The Dragons'. He did not know to choose what could be worse, the house or the video.

Without a thought he approached.... The badger, who or what ever he was, was the only link to Sokka. Zuko reasoned, if he asked then he answered, the exchange would have yielded that clue to reunion.

At the establishment he found everything to be shuttered. A search, though, revealed doorways, ajar, passages and corridors. They were narrow and bright yet thick with vapor.

Zuko entered at random; the idea was that everything emptied into a single, internal lobby. He trekked and kept an eye alerted to anybody watching the comings and goings of that fox-joint. He wondered if, given that old, old man's stature, if he was not an enforcer.... Yet, he could not see anything....

He stopped - at the end of the passage - at the cage, the tiny, electrified office.

A tattooed seal slash fox lurked....

"Five," said the figure, looking with rapid up and down elevator eyes and smiling.

Zuko reached into a pocket. He scrambled to assemble coinage. He happened on a bill. A five - thankfully, fetched without revealing the depth of the wealth he carried. He unfolded and swapped it through the cage.

For a moment the dragon's and seal's fingers brushed. It was electric. A spark flashed. Who knew to whom it belong or to whom it fled.

The attendant's eyes gazed at the exile - the hand, the face, the scar - as a ticket emerged from a slit between that part of the counter where their skin touched.

The ticket was dragged from seal to dragon, reversing the course of the payment.

Zuko did not fight the advance as a finger touched and swept a knuckle. Instead, he let a smile return the gesture. He thought, whether a fox or not a fox, they were among Sokka's people and he would not be rude even if there could be little of substance to it....

"Enter," he said, seemingly happier and friendlier.

"Thank you."

A doorway appeared; beyond it waited the atrium. It was foggier than the passage with ample swaths of shadow and darkness. At the center of the lobby stood a few patrons ready to buy its offerings. At either side of it were relics of amusements along with benches where a mixture of seals and badgers - inbetweeners and foxes - either smoked or imbibed.

He kept watching and waiting for that figure to appear - at length - he chose to walk into the theater itself.

At the auditorium Zuko found a wall of silence. Only a few populated that theater and they were not interested with 'Love Among The Dragons'.

He kept to the back, scanning to the front, listening to the crowd left and right.

Suddenly a music swept into a climax - it came out of the film - and Zuko could not help to gaze at its action. It was a view that zoomed onto the eyes of a warrior and the eyes of a stranger. That shot swapped, advancing into the eyes with each and every cycle. A break - a shot - of aiming a weapon, of tracking a knight. The faces returned - that chief adorned by plumage - that stranger clad by leather. They were random, quick edits with sloppy, grindhouse texture and already he knew it was the embarrassing Ember Island production of the great, Fire Realm epic.

_"I reckon you come to fetch dragon," the chief said of the knight, "stranger with a pale-face ... since the day of the creation, when the world was cleft into four, we guard the secret fire breeder."_

_  
_

"Well, chief, I can't say I know this or that about your tribe," that cool, ashy stranger replied - he raised his hat and revealed his face. "I just came by for the weather."

The gang of seal pretending to be of ancient dragon warrior stock laughed at the stranger who, then, lowered his stare into shadow and darkness and looked serious.

That music swelled as a jump interrupted the action.

_"I don't much like you laughing."_

A giggle erupted - it was not a part of the film - it was too vivid, too crisp to be of that world.

Zuko examined the crowd to find where it issued....

Could it be? It was the girl ... the girl at the cockpit ... the cockpit of the vehicle ... the vehicle Sokka boarded.

She was sitting atop that old, old man's lap, yawning and stretching like a cat across that badger.

Zuko thought about approaching the foxes until he noted their posture, their mutual exchange of affection.

_"A pile of poop is what you will be," warned the chief, "if they judge you wrong."_

_  
_

_"Then, if you three don't mind, I'll take my chances with the dragons."_

"I hate these old, elementalist flicks...."

Zuko heard the voice then felt the hand. It patted the top of his head. It stroked his face. Then, with a thumb and a finger, it clasped the tip of his chin. He turned - and found that tawny, decorated warrior. Their lips met swell to swell. Their juices exchanged face to face. Immediately the griffin tasted the twangy, metal flavor of the wolf's pierce - it was a new and different sensation and it spurred a lust that impelled the kiss to go deeper and deeper.

"Sokka...."

"Shhh...."

With a smile the seal kissed the dragon.

Zuko massaged the shoulders and felt where the skin was exposed. From the neck, front and back. To the head, up and down. Then - at the scalp the stubble of mohawk - at the face the etch of tattoo - tantalized his fingertips. Sokka allowed that intimate violation of flesh, knotting his face, clenching and biting his lips, as the exploration of his feature stirred his raw, male excitement. And they swapped. Seal charted naked chunks of flesh. Dragon moaned and groaned at the play of dark fingers tickling light skin. Zuko could not exhaust the lust stoked by the wolf's body. Sokka was rapt by the griffin's pallid, ashy feature. Then with another awkward side-to-side embrace that culminated with tongues probing mouths, they allowed their touch to wander into other, explosive areas.

They looked at the film as yet another clamor of activity roared out of the azure - god, how time was quickly, quickly passing.

_The pale-face and the chief, with other tag-along seals-as-dragons stood at the base of a mountain._

_  
_

"They'll cut you up, they'll cut you up, up, up," a warrior said, "and eat you up, up, up!"

"And poop! Don't forget about the poop!" the chief added.

A shaman turned and bent wiggling tribal ass to stranger face.

In reply the knight atop the stallion swatted the air.

_"My browned eye through which great nature sees and mocks the work of her hand."_

"The flick is awful," Zuko whispered between licking and biting Sokka's face, "but I love seals-as-dragons - and naked, hot skin - dark, dark, dark skin - oh, god, that ass! Look at that ass - spreading its cheeks - won't you wiggle that ass of yours like that for me?"

Sokka chuckled, latching and yanking at Zuko's waist until they were lips to lips and whispered: "My little while dragon ... yes ... I will be wiggling that ass of mine for you, only for you, just for you...."

"And flex it like that, won't you flex your cheeks ... I want to see your muscles through your skin," he continued, his syllables joined with passion, as he found and devoured a tawny, smooth chin.

"Only if you lick it, slather it, all of it, clean it with your tongue," he added, stroking the edge of the cheek, palming the whole of the scar.

"You have no idea, Sokka.... You have no idea. How I wanted you.... How it's what I thought about.... How I feared you would not let it. God, I want to taste the taste of your sealmeat."

They stopped - afraid that their play was too much of a distraction - yet - nobody appeared to notice.

Their neighbor, the girl and the elder, were into a game of their own design. The old, old man sat head aback, legs and arms apart. His knees swayed, rocked side to side. His thighs swung in and out. The young girl's left hand was at the cheek, right hand was at the waist. She dug into the waist of the short like a badger clawed into earth. She worked, yanking and stroking....

Zuko and Sokka kissed and let their hands and fingers grope wherever and whatever they got a touch of. Then, with a sigh they shared, they rested against each other, cheek to cheek, nose to nose, tongue to tongue. Sokka reached up onto the griffin's chest to ribs beneath muscles. Zuko reached down into the wolf's waist to crack between cheek.

"It's filthy, Sokka said to Zuko.

"I want you to make me dirty," he replied while breaching that crack and probing a puck of flesh, "I want your filth...."

* * *

Ty Lee and Mai with Suki arrived at the warehouse.

The foxes wore their white and black uniform. White face. Black body. A sleek, militia synthesis to honor ancient Avatar Kiyoshi, of the Earth Realm. That era found the Avatars cycled among the Realms. Until those tyrannical Brahman turtles assumed control. And Revolution killed the monk and everything to do with the Avatar as it equalized the Elements. But those unknowable, mysterious badgers recalled their glories.

"Suki?" asked Azula.

"I arrived as vehicle allowed," the fox replied.

"Is it about Zuko?" Mai asked.

Ty Lee simply held a breath.

Azula nodded then gave an icy, freezing smile.

Zuko had been an embarrassment to the House of Azulon.

The Kiyoshi, more or less, controlled by its source of wealth, Azula, were known to be her family's enforcement wherever dirt threatened to appear. Tonight, however, with her call and with her too too subtle revelation, it marked that a threshold had been crossed. They would be dealing with the refugee of the family.

"Father disowned Zuko, officially, and I dropped by to deliver the document. I," she stopped, her face once delighted now sunk into a depth of terror and horror the girls did not suspect the dragon was capable of. It almost appeared to be genuine - they could not say.... "What I saw ... it is not a pretty, pretty sight to see. I am disturbed by what a life of hedonism lead directly into. Truthfully, I suspected Zuko was into shit just not that into shit.... We need to make it go away ... or ... it will be the end of everything."

* * *

Fresh out of the shower, they flopped into the mattress, where gravity dragged them together.

Zuko's head abutted Sokka's chest. Sokka's arms wrapped Zuko's waist. One moved up. One moved down. Their warmth blanketing their wet, dewy nakedness. They adjusted until they lay cheek to cheek. Through a frenzy of tiny, little teases, their hands clasped and their fingers zippered pale to earthy.

It was not taboo to mix water and fire, male and male yet they treated each and every touch they stole as if it were....

As the seal smiled the dragon worshiped his skin through his kiss.

Zuko sighed, fulfilled and contest, as he gazed at their bodies - tone, sleek - glimmering with the remnants of their shower as if they were flowers at the dawn of the day.

The sun appeared and a red swath of light filtered through the window.

Sokka stared, sill and silent, as the daylight illuminated the vibrant, erotic striation of color displayed by their bodies. One tawny. One ashy. One dense with muscle. One thin, frail ... anemic.

It was not always so....

The wolf seemed to give its skin to worship. The griffin yearned to adore those vulnerable, exposed offerings.

"I give me to you," Sokka said, embracing the dragon about the waist, going up and down the spine.

"Cold?" Zuko asked - a wide, bright grin was the reply the seal issued along with a nod.

Zuko massaged that treasure of masculinity that had been given to devotion.... "What a strong, rugged warrior I know...." Warmth flowed out of his grasp like fire out of a tech.

Stirred, the wolf yanked the griffin, up then down, and they were then bottom to top.

Zuko kissed Sokka from lip to neck, from neck to chest, from chest to stomach, and onward, further and further, onward. The griffin gave those intimate family colors exposed betwixt thigh all affection that a body of flesh and blood was capable. The wolf moaned and groaned, attaining a wild, feral appearance beyond that which tattooed, pierced features admitted. Frenzied. Frantic. Rhythmic - trapped by his own involuntary action that could not stop shaking like a leaf with those motes of loves planted through kisses thereabout.

Spurred at the very carnal pleasure he gifted Sokka, Zuko, too, became like an animal as he devoured the flesh, working up, up wetting everything from the thighs to the face. Then continuing to the decorations where the features were transformed from the work of woman to the art of man. Then continuing to the scalp where the stubble about the mohawk was thick. Twitching, still rapt by the adoration Zuko offered, Sokka flipped top to bottom, forming an entanglement of limbs, light and dark, fire and water. And, starting from the neck and going down, down wolf returned griffin its own fevered worship.

Zuko grasped at the mattress, at Sokka's shoulders, mohawk, shoulders, writhing as the kissing became licking became devouring....

The seal upped its tail as its thighs spread and its spine arched. The dragon's toes curled and brushed against calves.

They spun, again, almost off of the bed.

Zuko grasped onto Sokka and dragged themselves onto the center of the blanket where he engulfed that turgid seat of pleasure.

"Tickle me," wolf begged, sitting while embracing griffin. "I need it ... my little white dragon ... tickle me ... burn me...."

Zuko squirmed out of the grip of the seal and lay his face between his thighs. He studied as that display shivered with anticipation. He took Sokka in to and out of his mouth to wet its flesh. He retracted its skin and watched, transfixed as it twitched free off of the grip.

"Please, Zuko...."

Zuko looked at Sokka and teased the edge of the sensitive swell of flesh and brought it into his mouth. And clenched his stomach. And, with a sound like a wretch, he urged a fleck of fire out of his gut. A trick Iroh taught ages and ages ago....

Instantly, Sokka tensed - his face tight and contorted as if pained - howled - his yield rattled the mattress. Zuko felt a surge of water tinged with that spice and released the kiss. The griffin watched that slit spread as a shot of milk burst through the air to land at the cleft between the wolf's pectorals. He teased that sensitive, rough rim of flesh where the head met the body and felt a spasm as another spurt of orgasm erupted and landed lower onto the chest. A third and fourth reached lower and lower. A fifth came as Zuko suckled at that spot and Sokka released a pent, clenched gasp. A sixth was a dribble; beyond there were only a few random twitches then it shrunk, flaccid, recovered with its hood of skin. The dragon gave it a tug and kissed its thoroughly wet, salty fragrant tip. The seal moaned and groaned exhausted.

They lay, Zuko's face against Sokka's sex, Sokka's fingers through Zuko's scalp, together embraced without a secret left unveiled.

Zuko watched Sokka rub the tip where the lick of fire seared the flesh - the skin glowed as he applied the only bit of water-tech he knew to do.

"It wasn't a burn, Zuzie, don't be afraid," the wolf said, pressing the dragon's face tight between his thighs.

Almost with a tear, the griffin kissed what the seal left exposed.

Sokka took Zuko by the shoulders and lifted until they were face to chest, each wet with juice.

"When you tickle it feels like a little pain - just - a little pain," Sokka said, "it's like a ritual, Zuzie, you make me a man every time you give me fire."

"I hate, hate hurting you ... even when you want it ... I just cannot deal with the thought that what I do could be hurting you. I guess - you feel that way when you - oh, Sokka ... you are already a man."

Zuko shut his eyes and inhaled the scent of his friend's thick, sticky juice. It was not that spice, rather, a weird ... aromatic ... fragrance of which no word could have compacted into a description.

"Is it better, Sokkie?"

Sokka smiled and patted Zuko's scar with the tips of his fingers.

Laying like that, fire atop water, Zuko heard a rumbled out of Sokka.

"It's like a volcano," said Sokka to Zuko.

Zuko upped and kissed Sokka at the mouth.

"You do so, so much for me."

Sokka gazed at his hand as it clutched Zuko's hand....

"We're so different," he said, rubbing dark fingers across light knuckles. "You're a dragon. I'm a seal."

"No," he said, "we're the same, we're the same...."

Sokka smiled, shaking his head, kissing his friend.

"Maybe in a few ways...."

"In _every_ way," Zuko insisted. "We're the same exact elements. We intake air and expel water and soil. We live and warm our bodies with fire."

"That sounds a lot like Avatar stuff," Sokka teased.

"It's something uncle taught me," added Zuko.

"We make the same juice, you and I."

It was dawn and they knew they could not be abed forever.

Sokka stood to gather the clothes that had been flung about the floor. Zuko sat to enjoy those unfettered free views of the body. He studied that skin trying to memorize the detail of its each and every design. Sokka bent and Zuko could not resist it. Zuko grasped the sides of the thighs and gazed into Sokka's valley - the rift was pitch. Apart, fire licked water up and down, down and up teasing that knot where the taste of the spice was strong.

Consumed by the sight of the cheeks and their feel and their taste of spice - it drove the griffin into insanity and that lust impelled him to penetrate the wolf....

"Wait," Sokka struggled to speak and twist free of Zuko, "it's full ... full...."

* * *

Azula was left little to go by but a label that could have meant anything. Er Skeit - she could not find the spice at the database. She reasoned it was the fact that Er Skeit was an Earth Realm artifact.

Yet the database was thorough enough to contain everything known at Metropolis. To continue would have involved tapping into the databases of the other elemental realms.... Impossible to do _remotely_ ... and if she ventured into their networks at their libraries they would have overseen her work.

Azula hated to be overseen....

At the end she returned to what was natural to a woman as adept with people as she claimed to be.

"Suki!" she called into the cellular. "Well ... I _finally_ got to you. Still at your, island, is it? Island - am I right? Anyway, since you are already at the Earth Realm, I wondered.... I want to bake a cake for my brother's birthday."

Suki - at the other end of their conversation - was struck dumb.

"Suki?" Azula paused - and sighed. "Do not tell me you forgot about my brother's birthday."

"No, um, er," the fox replied while applying the makeup, "it's just that you don't celebrate that and you don't cook either."

"What?" she smirked, exhaling a lick of fire against her nails - that red paint set. "I do too know how to cook. All of a sudden, too, fire-tech prodigy that I am. Listen ... recipe is _special_ ... I need an ingredient. An earthy ingredient. A spice. It reminds Zuko of his new and different ... existence. I know it should be found somewhere at that realm of yours...."

* * *

Eventually the work of Suki brought Azula into a tiny ethnic shop ... at the edge of a sector ... it was too too familiar. Of course - there were a few establishments scattered throughout unzoned!Metropolis known to carry Er Skeit. The dragon chose that shop, that shop _specifically_ for its location: its proximity to the warehouse Zuko converted into an apartment with that seal.

She left the white and black painted foxes at the vehicle to serve as lookout while she strong into the shop amid the broad day light - as broad and as day as the Fire Realm above allowed to be the Water Realm below.

A banner, more or less like that tetratomic, archaic insignia, dangled by the frame of the entryway. She recognized it immediately after research into the Pakku/Hakoda split. It was the enumeration of Air, Fire, Water, and Earth Realms and signified establishment friendly to WhiteLotus and Operator travelers.

Everything was enshadowed except at the freezers. The illumination through the steel and glass appliance was an eerie, dull azure that suggested a cool, Arctic climate. The air itself was infused by a scent not unlike that of a sanitizer. Altogether she felt the establishment gave the impression of a laboratory, a purveyor of clandestine and she wondered just what they offered....

Azula explored the aisles - the regular Water and Earth denizens noticed the dragon and kept far far away. She surveyed content like a speedreader flipped from page to page. She could not uncover it.... It was not until she passed by the counter that she _noticed_ ... that proprietor kept a lot inaccessible.

"Er," Azula approached a young tribal warrior at the counter, "I need a jar of Er Skeit."

A woman looked at the dragon and at the clerk then shifted about to retreat.

The youth stared, agape, with features a shade of red ... it caught by surprise the eye of Azula.

"Um," the clerk looked _uncomfortable_ , "we shouldn't say that aloud."

"Whatever _it_ signifies to anybody," the dragon continued, "is not my business - I just need a jar of it."

"Yes, of course, of course, it's just that, _Er Skeit_ , is kind of ... rude ... and we don't get a lot of dragons buying it - heck - most of the seals and the badgers don't know what it is. It tends to be," he whispered, "foxes who buy it."

"So ... is it a fad among the outlaw?" she used an equally hush hush tone of voice. Er Skeit proved to be a whole rainbow of exotic wonder. Suddenly - the spice got hot and she felt like hanging onto each and every word that warrior uttered. She leaned into the counter, enough that at that right point of voice a glance would have revealed fantasies of skin. "Tell me about it, warrior."

With a look left and right and a nod they moved to the side of the counter.

The seal continued: "Rumor is the spice comes out of Ba Sing Se."

The dragon chortled: "City obliterated by _turtles_?"

"Nobody understands what the spice is, how it's made, how it's used - rumor is rumor. The badgers don't tell anybody anything. We only assume it's a spice 'cause of its heat. Inbetweeners use it as an additive to kill the taste of what they call fool. Problem is that if you eat a lot of it it's very very painful when it's got to go ... if you know what I mean."

The youth reached under the counter and produced the vial. A yellow vial, translucent. A black label. A white font. Corked - removed - its content was a clump of red. The spice emitted a strange, earthy scent. Like that of a freshly rained garden.

"It is dirt by the look of it," Azula said of the red which seemed to contain traces of vegetation.

"Badgers - they can't go without their earth - it can't be dirt. At least, if it's dirt ... it's dirt unknown to man. Dirt is not that _hot_. Don't you feel it?"

She smirked - corked that vial - noticed a fire burning at her fingertip.

"Tell me, warrior," she added, passing a wad of cash, giving that view of the ecstasy of the flesh, "are there any odd strangers who buy the spice?"

She displayed a bill.

He covered her hand (and money) with his hand.

"A couple, now that you mention it, a muddy-pair is what we call it, a water and earth pair, boys. One with a scar. One with loads and loads of tattoos."

"They buy it?"

"They but it - regularly."

Azula smiled and issued a good-bye with a kiss at the seal's cheek.

* * *

A plate with the slice of cake remained at that nightstand where it attracted the swarm....

The light of upper fiery realm - dim yet persistent - filled the window and lent its star-and-moon like view to the bedroom. It was a chamber filled by shelves. Spilt like avalanches were tomes from the shelves to the floor. Scattered about that furniture were pictures of a blended family to be. Ozai. Hakoda. Ursa. Kyla. Azula. Katara. Iroh. Even the Liberator and the Avatar joined the chaos - strange that the monk was so so slightly altered from the face broadcasted by video-screen.

Upon the mattress were Zuko and Sokka. Entangled like a mass of legs and arms. Swapping positions. Exchanging kisses, embraces. There was such a tender, sweet gentility imbued with a virile masculine fever to the expressions of their affections.

Zuko heard a sound echo out of the seal. It felt as if the stomach spasmed as that sound erupted. He followed a cleft of muscle as it arched from the stomach to the waistband of underwear - then reached into that warmth between the wolf's thighs.

Sokka replied to the dragon's gambit of intimacy with a squeeze of cheeks followed by a kissing - and licking and biting - around the griffin's mouth.

Then, spurred by the fire at the belly, Sokka got off of the mattress - the underwear dangled then slipped (at last slain by Zuko) to expose tawny cheeks and onyx cleft.

Zuko clasped the tight clenched cheeks as they issued a burp.

Sokka continued through the darkness and shadow into the bathroom.

An airship floating between Water and Fire Realms swept its spotlight across the view of the window. An advertisement - the animated company mascot, a badger painted white and black, hawked firecola to dragons.

Zuko waited - as a new and different advertisement assaulted the senses. That hot, earthy fragrance filled the chamber. He sprang off of the bed. He passed through the liter of tomes and clothes and everything. The dragon entered the passage at the the doorway. Beyond it he confronted the abyss midnight created out of the loft - the bathroom was at the side of the corridor - the smell and the sound accompanying the smell came out of that area.

"You're my volcano!" the griffin exclaimed.

The glow of what should have been starlight splattered against that frosted glass of window - it was ajar enough to admit a stiff crack of air. Sufficient flux filtered to illustrate contours of faces. Zuko still tellingly pallid and frail. Sokka still muscled.

The wolf's outlines of tattoos caught sparkled glimmers of lights.

He knelt in front of the toilet, straddled by thighs, facing the storm churning out of the anus. Hands reached his fingers - squeezed, zippered, dragged. Arms embraced tight going from shoulders to waist. He felt tugged up, up until he stood and someway, somehow his shorts fell onto his ankles.

The seal embraced, holding him tighter and tighter, tugged closer and closer - all the while the plop, plop of movement echoed through the bathroom.

Sokka and Zuko did not release their touch, unafraid to let their bodies mingle, even amidst that peculiar state of distress.

Zuko replied to Sokka curiosity for curiosity. He set his knees against his knees as dragon loomed seal. He lowered until griffin chin reached wolf mohawk. He probed unknown, delicate intimacy with such a rapture of the work of his friend's ass.

"Sokka!" Zuko yelped as he filled the grasp of his companion's mouth.

Zuko grasped Sokka at the shoulder, then, with thumb and forefinger endeavored to explore that body as its toiled. Onto biceps. Into pectorals. Areolas stood firm.... Down. Down. Following the clefts at the abdomen. Leading to smooth if tight tummy. And reaching further and further to a tuft of fur. Then, lower and lower, he found that eye at the center of the storm. It greeted with a wetness as he charted its ridged knot of flesh. It expanded to expel - and as it relaxed griffin breached wolf.

Sokka writhed as he emptied and awkwardly fell forward to pin Zuko at the floor.

* * *

The aroma of Er Skeit was like a fire, growing and consuming.

If the loft were not already abandoned then the authorities would have been called to investigate. As like the silence that engulfed the warehouse, the stench that awaited the group was magnified by isolation. They felt as if they stepped into a nightmare unreal and chaotic. With shadow and darkness lurking, exposing only the flimsiest suggestions of structures as they ascended via elevator.

It had been a complex hastily converted into a residence; and as they rode up and up they caught glimpses of vistas that revealed the intent of the structure.

The elevator rested with a screech that jolted the crew. The portal felt as if it took eternity to retract. At last, at the top of the warehouse, the group led by Azula stepped out of the cage and into a sliver of walkway that encircled the edge of a vast, tubular shaft which spanned the tower from top to bottom.

An airship advertising firecola passing above lighting below as it swept left to right, up to down exposed the architecture....

For a shudder they felt like ants wandering through immensity.

"That," Azula said, indicating a portal that remained ajar.

Strange, the dragon thought, she did not recall watching the seal leaving - she just assumed it after the loft went onyx.

The gap expanded like a seam, vertical, a yawning, infinite abyss.

They hesitated until that dragon sparked a light - she kissed Suki where she stood at the entry - "Inside it is worse," Azula said.

Ty Lee and Mai eyed their leader as she plummeted into that void, her visage dissolving through an embrace of shadow and darkness.

Azula found a switch and with that the apartment was awash with light enough to reveal everything.

"Zuko is not at the bathroom," she announced, "Zuko is not at the bedroom. Either. Girls, that seal was not an expert at water-tech and could not be able to undo the evidence. Not all of it. As I excel to read who and what people are I know that to be true."

"What are we to do, anyway?" asked Suki.

"Complete the job - with fire," Azula replied. "The apartment. The whole entire warehouse. We need to destroy everything that connects Zuko to my family."

* * *

It was another Avatar Day; despite Zhao's insistence, it was too perfect to waste with that the youth already understood to be folly.

Azula, to be exact, struck a hit that night, as they sat about the campfire - as they heard water and earth tales - she blurted the notion the Avatar was dead.

 _"Even if Avatar Aang existed, he would have been long, long killed - otherwise kept refrigerated,"_ she explained a certain theory of Iroh ... that addition of preservation so disturbed Zhao that Zuko could not help but laugh.

So ... yielding the search for that ageless of ageless ghosts (as Iroh dubbed Aang) the would be teenagers splintered off of their troop and opted instead to play a game of hide and seek. It seemed appropriate to Mai and Ty Lee (who Azula dragged out of the Earth Realm) and Zuko could not find a fault with that suggestion. Except he could not find Sokka anywhere and he would have hated to play without his friend. Still, hide and seek was impossible to reject, it was among a few games they were permitted at the Azulon Sector as it fostered innate military discipline.

Zuko was especially good at seeking that day, though, he opted to go hiding.

At the park, Azula stood by the tree to wait while the group spread....

Lurking through the wilderness, Zuko stumbled onto an idea.... _It will be the ticket to beat Azula_ , he thought.

A tribe of seal worked about what used to be an Air Realm garden. At that area of park was the lake and by that lake was the old, pre-Revolutionary school. It would have been used by the monks - by the Avatar - although nobody could be certain.... It was used by Azula and the girls - they performed 'The Boy In The Iceberg' at its theater. Zuko recalled its interior - there was room enough to hide and not to be found....

He approached, walking through a trail of gravel as if just passing by to see that lake.

That day the tribe applied its skill to paint a face of the structure.

At the edge of the school Zuko spotted a doorway. A set of old-fashioned, hinged doorways. They were kept ajar by rock. Assuring that the workmen did not notice - that the rock did not budge - he squeezed through the doorway and landed across the stairwell.

Faced with a fork Zuko chose down instead of up - and as it happened to be at that juncture he caught Azula shout.

Panicked, he burst into a hallway. To the right was the theater. To the left was the mezzanine. Only columns at that vast, open 'waiting' chamber supplied a taste of shelter. Yet, further to the end of the passage was a set of doors male and female separated by a sliver of wall. He took the sex that yielded and escaped just as he heard the feet of children enter the school.

Zuko smirked - that bathroom was deconstructed by renovation and admitted a thousand ways to hide.

Urinals, unhooked, were tipped against the wall. Stalls, dismantled, were piled atop the floor. Toilets remained naked, exposed. Much of the wall behind the toilets was rented midway between the floor and the seat of the bowl. That gash exposed a pipe ... and shadow and darkness beyond.

He scrambled into the gash and slipped through its long, horizontal abyss. He backed further and further behind the pipe. Itching as the rubble attacked his skin. Coughing as the filthy and dirty, acrid dust invaded his lungs. Yet he survived in spite of everything and he remained - still, silent - so isolated hider could not be seen unless seeker knew how to look....

All of a sudden ... the doorway creaked.

Zuko cursed at that turn of luck ready to be found until he realized it was not Azula who entered the bathroom. He could not identify the figure except the uniform which revealed it to be a seal. Zuko froze as the man walked to the toilet at the end of the wall.

The dragon's eyes started as they caught sight of that seal undressing - shirts then pants - tumbling onto floor. Then, partially revealed through the gap of the wall, he gazed at that body _naked_. Sleek. Chiseled. Tattooed at patches of skin there and there. A work of art. It was the youth's very first experience (alone) with a seal so exposed from head to foot. The reality of it took the air away and inspired universes of fantasies. The beefy legs and arms - and the yearn to feel comforted by such strength. The sculpted torso its cuts like roadways and the dream to trace them lower and lower ... onto a treasure of texture. That tackle and its color dangled between those thighs ... it sent into a rage lust only awoken by Sokka. But - to top all of that - man spun and boy gazed at a masterpiece which was ass. Its cheeks plump full of heft. Its cleft silky, curvy. And he stared, transfixed, as it approached.

That ass. Copper - its skin. Onyx - its mysterious realm of crack. He followed the length of its cleft and the curves of its cheeks as they converged into a view of that seal's fully grown and functional tackle. God, that hind as viewed from below to above, vexed a curiosity he could not sate as he wondered what that texture could have felt like....

Zuko was not prepared for such beauty to be so intimately splayed....

The man did not sit, rather, squat atop of the toilet with his feet, his toes clutched onto the edge.

That vantage revealed a glimpses into the crack above and the tackle below.

The boy saw the shaft and the knob; its tip was swollen, half exposed, half covered, its violet bud of flesh was rimmed by a collar of skin. He saw the tight, ridged sack and the vulnerable unmistakable center of masculinity it held. He saw the crack widen as the figure reached, grabbed, spread cheeks.

At that the ass lowered and aimed its sight onto the bowl.

What appeared to be a round, craggy eye-like slit etched into the cleft of the crack deformed. It expanded to reveal a lip-like texture the kind of red girls applied onto their features. That eye/lip widened, spread like wrinkly, ruddy mouth at yawn. An object crowned through it and rushed past it. That even travelled so fast Zuko was unsure of what, exactly, happened. Until he heard the plop and saw the spray. Water kissed the ass where it splattered against its flesh.

Stealthed, the dragon shifted to steal another look at the eye/lip.

Not a man. Not a seal. Not any thing of any kind. To the boy the man was not a man only an object of desire. Lust that consumed Zuko transformed water tribe warrior into just the essential of the fantasy. Ass. Tackle. Swaths of tawny, painted skin. Exploited without any other facet of identity.

The dragon caught yet another object peak at that inverted, earthened dimple. He studied everything.... He noted the body's consternation - the clenching of cheeks - the swaying of thighs - the bucking of knees. The shivers that jostled the tackle. The toes that curled onto the edge of the bowl. All of it just to urge that object - a bulk many, many times larger than what the tiny eye/lop dimple used to be - free of the ass. At length the seal ejaculated a sound of relief as it birthed - that shaky, quivering shit - infertile by its lack of cry. The would-be offspring a log of deep, deep only that glistened as if moist while it tumbled into the toilet.

"God ... is that what you look like when you shit? Is that what you do, your whole, entire body, when you shit?" he thought and wondered what that seal's face looked like as all of it happened. Was he making weird strange faces? Crying? Smiling? Dying? He cursed.... He wanted to experience it ... and plotted to convince another to demonstrate it. Maybe by an exchange of demonstration?

Zuko was so rapt by its beauty he did not notice that act accompanied a very very bad smell.

He wondered what it would be like to hold that magnificent specimen of seal, clutching cheeks and feeling body as it did the business. To experience the play of those muscles ... all of those muscles ... and their sensation as they expelled a shit. He had not been introduced to such a perfect example of anatomy - and then to be studying its mysterious, intimate functions - and then to be close enough to touch.... Right then and there he imagined himself under such a fine figure of seal reaching to tame its ass, reaching to corral its shit with his own naked hands.

At length the dragon assembled the strength to extend a hand beyond that gash as another log started to crown. He was too afraid to go beyond the wall. He brushed the soil as it was expelled then darted into the void. He was still and silent as the seal stood to finish the job. Wiping. Wetting. Using the water of the bowl.

It was not until the figure reached to its clothes that Zuko caught a glimpse of that face. A face framed by straight, onyx hair. Its features copper where they were not painted tribal. Eyes azure like what they tamed eons and eons ago. Lips thin and firm decorated with the patch of beard at the tip of the chin.

The boy knew the shape of the lips he would be kissing at night while embarking onto a voyage of touch to grope and to rub and to yank at all of the man's bits and pieces of treasure.

Alone, he examined that fleck of soil at the tip of the finger. That silent yet potent reminder of an intimacy forever linking dragon and seal, boy and man. The thought it came from such an ass, such a fine, clenched ass, from the wrinkly, pinkish rim of soil buried like treasure within the crack ... the whole of it brought his finger into his mouth.

* * *

The girls found a bathroom that was spotless - spotless as if unused.

What could not be scrubbed away proved to be Er Skeit. It smelled of it through and through. Especially about the toilet.

The rest of the apartment was not as tidy....

Yet they could not find a trace of either dragon or seal - except - atop that mattress among a pile of rags were Zuko's expired ID card and jacket, its family colors faded.

Azula took the ID while the Kiyoshi gazed, baffled - although relieved there would not be a body.

"Are you sure Zuko died?" Suki asked.

Azula did not reply except with a nod.

_"Zuko!"_

_  
_

...choking ... gagging ... heaving...

The light flashes and Azula darts out of sight. Zuko, floored, face wet and soiled, coughs flecks of dirt.

"Zuko!"

...slipping ... coughing ... falling...

Sokka strides atop, hands clutching and glowing against Zuko's chest, as he applies a maneuver.

_"Zuko!"_

"He inhaled a face full of shit," she explained - the Kiyoshi blinked - "no way, no way to get that out. Who would have reacted mouth to mouth?"

To Azula it was impossible to accept anything like love existed, even, that it could be so strong.

It was a foolish, foolish game they played and was not such a death the only way it could have ended?

"Either dead or alive Zuko will not return and we need to torch this shithole."

Azula flung that ID and sighed - she always thought she understood people.


End file.
